Discussion Release Notes version 0.30

[DeletedUser]

I find it interesting that all the answers from the mods have so far failed to even acknowledge that the balancing issues with the game and how it is played by most players are a lot more deep than just a matter of one or two repeatable quests.

My post was totally ignored, as all that came after that touched on the some of the reasons of why players feel the need to do so many quests and build cities that the devs think are unbalanced.

I would also like to add, that on top of the issues I mentioned on my previous post, I also agree with what many players have said over and over again, repeatable quests give us something to do in a game that has a become mostly a waiting game otherwise. In other words, making as many quests a day as possible, is not only a way to maximize our resource productions, but also a way to keep us interested in a game that is becoming more boring with each update. "Beating" the quest system ends up being a mini game on its own, as it provides a strategy challenge, as players try to adapt their city to make the most of the available quests. If we didn't have that most players would have probably quit by now, because honestly, collecting from buildings and reset them a handful of times a day is just not enough to keep us interested.

Now what puzzles me the most with the change to the collect coins quest, is that it is actually encouraging players to run everything in 3h cycles, thus eliminating the need for logging any more frequently than a few minutes every 3h.
This is puzzling because it is widely accepted by the gaming industry overall that the more frequently you log into a game, the more "addicted" you become and more likely you are to play the game for longer, and more likely you are to spend money on the game. Having a loyal playerbase that is willing to buy diamonds is how these games survive. Which is why most games have several mechanisms that encourage you to spend as much time playing as you can, like the fact that the shorter production cycles of most buildings award more supplies/goods, than the longer ones. Inno is fully aware of that, which is why they have very cleverly added the "treasure hunt" feature in FoE, to keep players logging several times a day even if they have nothing else to do in the game.
It has been studied that the more you play, the more you want to play, and the less you play, the less you want to play, maybe because that gives you time to find other interests, like different games to occupy your time with.
Then, why is Elvenar moving in the opposite direction? Are the devs so bored with the game themselves they just want us all to quit so they can all move on to design another game? Because if what they want is to keep the players they have and engage the new players that try this game, then changing quests so that we are encouraged to play less and less seems like a really dumb thing to do!

It seems to me that the game design is just not thought out properly, the eagerness to put out updates at a very fast pace is harming the game, because the changes are not well thought out, which is why again and again changes are brought out to try and fix the same issue, making it only worse each time. And don't get me started on all the technical issues that the game currently has, as it seems each update brings out new bugs and worse overall performance. And that's not even the worse part, I would have no problem with those issues in the beta server, if I didn't know by now, that although those bugs and performance are identified and reported in beta, they always make their way into the live servers the following week. Why do you bother to have a Beta server if you don't listen to your beta players and happily carry all the bugs to the live servers anyway?

Since this post is too long already I finish now with a plea, listen to the players. Slow down the updates if you have to, but make sure when you do launch an update that it actually fixes the game in a positive way, not only by eliminating all the bugs and other technical issues with the game, but also by reworking the mechanism of the game that need addressing in a way that makes sense and doesn't look like a poorly designed band aid, which is what you have given us with these changes to the repeatable quests time and time again.

Give us reasons to be excited about the game, give us reasons to want to spend time and money on this game, give us events, special buildings that actually add to the gameplay instead of hurting our cities ( Ancient Wonders i'm looking at you). We are not the bad guys, we are in fact the people that allow you to do the job I hope you love, since as every time we spend money on this game it helps you secure your job.
Work with us, not against us.

 

[DeletedUser]

Collecting stuff -> slow and laggy
Starting production again -> slow and laggy
Zoom -> sometimes laggy
World map -> longer loading times and sometimes blue background again

Looks to me like you decreased game performance with the update

I support this product... bad performance and the memory leak is back... not so heavy, but not so fine

 

[DeletedUser1388]

When I buy a ball at a toy store, I can play football (soccer), handball, basketball, volleyball and a lot of other games with it and it will most likely work in all of them. If I work a bit with it I can probably use it to replace my bicycle's front wheel. With some luck it will even work, but it is not a decent solution, it's not worth it in the long run.

That is a very cool example, I like it... especially, that I WILL DECIDE if I want to replace the wheel with the ball, not others will try to force me to do or not to do it

 

[DeletedUser651]

By 'decent' I only meant that there are different ways players can progress while still participating in most aspects of the game. Having hardly definable decent ways and clearly indecent ways are two different things.

We all understand that quest grinding isn't the way the game is supposed to be played. But, you keep ignoring WHY we are doing this. We do this because the game is broken. Here is one example: In the US server you have the first world, Arendyll, and now you have opened 3 other worlds to play there. Meanwhile, most of the cities in Arendyll were abandoned. Instead of trying to fill one cup, you bring in more cups and all of them are mostly empty. If you keep giving us bicycles without any front tires, we will have to put something in its place. In fact, I think it is genius that players have figured out a way to keep the using the bicycle without a front tire. The only other option is to hang it on the wall and stare at it.

Instead of trying to limit people's ability to use the ball as the front tire, why not fix the bike? You seem to want to do anything but fix the bike. In fact, you won't even admit that the bike is broken. So, how can we have a real discussion? Everything madzix said in both posts is spot on, yet it was completely ignored so we could go back to arguing over the balls being used as a bicycle tire.

As usual, madzix, hits the nail on the head with this comment:

And that's not even the worse part, I would have no problem with those issues in the beta server, if I didn't know by now, that although those bugs and performance are identified and reported in beta, they always make their way into the live servers the following week. Why do you bother to have a Beta server if you don't listen to your beta players and happily carry all the bugs to the live servers anyway?

How many ways do we have to say the same things before you will hear us?

Instead of any of that getting fixed, I now have to have tons of stupid level 1 workshops in my city to deal with the latest nonsense about the coins quest. Really? How annoying. I can still figure out a way to make this stupid ball fit the bike, but it is getting harder and harder. If you flatten the ball too, then the bike really will be a useless thing hanging on the wall.

"Beating" the quest system ends up being a mini game on its own, as it provides a strategy challenge, as players try to adapt their city to make the most of the available quests. If we didn't have that most players would have probably quit by now, because honestly, collecting from buildings and reset them a handful of times a day is just not enough to keep us interested.

Yup. Yup. Yup.

 

[DeletedUser1419]

with a great chance that this be deleted, since it is too negative.

atm i have 4 type 1 manufactory, 4 type 2 manufactory and 2 type 3 manufactory. just to run them i need 11 workshop. All level 15.
and after i not realy more can use any quest to help me a bit longer i will need to build about 4-5 more workshop.
For els can i not open tech's. in my tech tree. and i can also not upgrade the building's.
but now the next problem. thanks to that i not realy have any neighbor left who whot to help me. i will need to build about 3/4 of my area whit cultur. so i can boost my city just a bit. atm. i have 63 spot free. but only 26 spot have a city. and out of the 26 city. are ther 2-3 neighbor who realy help. everyday..
and fellowship have i give 100% up. last i whos in. whos only run unfair trads like 500 : 1500 goods of same type, and not realy help the other members.

first of all get us some neighbor. ok you can not spell so there come new player. why then not set the aktive player together. i know from other games. that it are possible..
ok you say the quest are not a realy part of the game. well then remove them. then will player only think on the city. and not on the quest's
and then to the trade, have about to set it so up. that minimun 1 star. most be on. to stop many of the unfair trade's

 

[DeletedUser199]

Let me put it this way. When I buy a ball at a toy store, I can play football (soccer), handball, basketball, volleyball and a lot of other games with it and it will most likely work in all of them. If I work a bit with it I can probably use it to replace my bicycle's front wheel. With some luck it will even work, but it is not a decent solution, it's not worth it in the long run.

The problem in this game is that the bike is broken and you are taking away the ball.
So we can`t even play with the ball anymore!

 

[DeletedUser651]

• All repeatable quests that ask to gain Coins now have a requirement to produce Supplies as well from Chapter III on

Seriously, why do you want us to have all these stupid level 1 workshops in our cities? You say the quests are here to guide us, well, that is what your new requirement is guiding us to do. I can't for the life of me figure out why.

And why are the quests so heavy on giving coins and not supplies? Why is the neighborly help also so heavily weighted in the coins favor and not supplies? Things usually cost relatively the same amount of coins and supplies, yet you have made getting coins so easy and getting supplies so hard. But the thing I am really stumped about is why you are all so freaked out by anyone who doesn't have "enough" workshops. You keep wanting us to build more and more and more. What is this workshop obsession?

 

[DeletedUser338]

You have twice as many manufactories than workshops. I'm not even sure how you get the idea that that should work. How about you break some down and put a workshop there instead?
There, problem solved, everyone can go back and enjoy the game again.

 

[DeletedUser]

You have twice as many manufactories than workshops. I'm not even sure how you get the idea that that should work. How about you break some down and put a workshop there instead?
There, problem solved, everyone can go back and enjoy the game again.

The "idea that that should work" came from straightforward analysis of the game via some pretty basic math. Surely we're not smarter than the developers. Surely they analyze their game in multiple scenarios and were aware of this strategy. It's simple:

Quests produce supplies. We need fewer workshops. Fewer workshops equals more grid space for population and production. From there, we need to choose the most efficient method of populating.​

There was no hint from the Developers that they were troubled by the "lack of workshops". Some top Arendyll players have been running for months with minimum workshops - and none of the quest changes modified this fundamental relationship. A straightforward "Gain xxx coins get xxx supplies" has been a quest format at every stage of the game. Tacit approval.

This present hue and cry "oh, you don't have enough workshops! you're not playing the game correctly!" only arose after several of us started deleting premium buildings. Why? Once we started comparing our fully developed cities, it was apparent that Fertility Goddesses would always produce a lower score. The fact that they can't be upgraded (despite our requests) meant that they were on the verge of becoming totally inefficient in the next game release. We proposed the deletions as the best game strategy for efficient cities.

We did suspect that Inno wouldn't be pleased with our solution - understandably they would want their top cities to be advertisements for premium buildings. We asked for upgrades, and they didn't respond. So, I started doing what was best for my own game - deleting premium buildings.

Now we have this proposed quest change that reverses our analysis of the current non-Beta quests: Fertility Goddess players will always have superior scoring / production power.

So, given the timing, it seems to me that all this seeming outrage that "we're not playing decently" is just a cover for the fact that Inno made a mistake in their game plan. And, rather than correct the situation by giving us an opportunity to increase spending, they chose to make the game more restrictive for everyone.

 

[DeletedUser338]

There was no hint from the Developers that they were troubled by the "lack of workshops".

Excuse me? I'm not even gonna read further than that. Devs have been messing around with the quests for months now and the discussion has been going on for months too.

 

[DeletedUser283]

There was no hint from the Developers that they were troubled by the "lack of workshops".

frankly, I do not give a damn about what devs might think of my gameplay;

now from my experience with FoE which has similar basic mechanics for economy, we are getting coins automatically because we need population to run other buildings, so we need residences, and they produce coins; no need to think, it comes by itself;

supplies on the other hand is something you have to produce, workshops need to be built, they use population and culture (and space, but so do houses), and they production must be started manually.

I do not want to know why in heck some people went down to this twisted logic of "this quest gives me supplies for coins, so I do not need workshops", but I am sure that is is not what the devs had planned

because of the way I envision my gameplay, I have built workshops and I use them, and I consider quests as a minor source of income;

now to the core of it :
the problem is not people using a quest instead of workshops to get supplies;

the problem is "why in heck is there a repeatable quest that gives supplies for collecting coins (which is something that happens automatically) ?"
why is there a repeatable quest that rewards us for doing ... well, almost nothing

 

[DeletedUser867]

some people went down to this twisted logic of "this quest gives me supplies for coins, so I do not need workshops", but I am sure that is is not what the devs had planned

Oh Yes! Very Much Yes. And it's NOT a harmless issue of, "Why can't we play the game however we want?"

• Clicking like mad hammers the servers. This is an ON-LINE browser game, not a standalone game box.
• To protect the servers the developers had to divert resources to write code that will NEVER be used by 99% of the players.
• The blocking code makes the game LESS flexible for EVERYBODY ELSE, even for those of us who might appreciate the occasional transfusion.

If you look at the overall shape of the game, there are two ways to keep it interesting

1. Design a city that thrives on its own, with only a couple dozen clicks every few hours. The TIGHTER you run your city (the fewer clicks you allow yourself) while still keeping up with the 24 per day KP allowance, the more difficult and satisfying is the challenge. This playing style is easy on the servers.
2. OR you can explore as many sectors as possible, until the encounters are so difficult that you're stonewalled. This approach is ALSO quite challenging, but it leads to irritation and burnout and therefore isn't sustainable. This playing style stresses the servers.

 

[DeletedUser283]

OR you can explore as many sectors as possible, until the encounters are so difficult that you're stonewalled

well that's the way I play, until of course I get stonewalled

 

[DeletedUser]

frankly, I do not give a damn about what devs might think of my gameplay;

now from my experience with FoE which has similar basic mechanics for economy, we are getting coins automatically because we need population to run other buildings, so we need residences, and they produce coins; no need to think, it comes by itself;


now to the core of it :
the problem is not people using a quest instead of workshops to get supplies;

the problem is "why in heck is there a repeatable quest that gives supplies for collecting coins (which is something that happens automatically) ?"
why is there a repeatable quest that rewards us for doing ... well, almost nothing

I am so glad you mentioned this! Because, funny enough, you have the exactly same type of repeatable quests in FoE! Yes, you have a repeatable quest there that asks you to do the exact same than in elvenar, namely, collect x coins!
There is however a huge diference, the rewards from these repeatable quests in FoE are random prizes, that can be coins, supplies, goods, medals, and gasp! even diamonds!
So in FoE players can't rely on the rewards from the repeatable quests as a source of supplies, but in exchange they have a chance at getting much better prizes than in Elvanar. Funny enough, repeatable quests are not and never have been a problem in FoE, and everyone pretty much uses them.

Now, to be fair, i doubt anyone in FoE cycles the repeatable quests over and over again in order to be able to complete the same quest multiple times, which is what happens here and lead to this situation in the first place. But you now know why? Because in FoE the content is a lot better balanced, the workshops actually produce enough supplies to keep a city going without you having to go overboard with them, and the Greater Buildings have a huge impact in the game ( positive one, unlike the ancient wonders here).
There is also lots of things to do in FoE, with events happening regularly, which keeps the players engaged without them needing to do quests just for the sake of having something to do.

Now I invite you to check my main city, in the International server, Arendyll. If you bother to check it, you will see I have less than 10 manufactories, and I have plenty of high level workshops, so I have no need for the extra supplies from quests. So why I do I even bother to do those repeatable quests? Because it gives me something to do in the game, that's why!
Because if I just logged in, collected from my buildings, and reseted the production on them ignoring those quests, I would be in and out of the game in less than 5 minutes each time! Now, unlike Katwijk, I actually want a game to play, and not a game to play as little as possible.

That means, i would like to be able to spend more than 20/30 minutes during each day playing this game. If i wanted to play a game that i could only play for 5 mins every few hours i would go and play candy crush or something like it.
Which is why, having repeatable quests that are worth doing is so important to me. Keeps me interested and engaged in the game.
Now, I remember reading here, after the whole debacle of limiting the repeatable quests to one a day, one of the mods saying they would be revamping the quests to make all of them more attractive, so players would be interested in doing more of the quests, and skip less of them. And they started out that way, by making the 1 day production quests give goods. The problem was, as everything in this game it seems, they didn't think it through. So as soon as players adapted to the new quests and started doing them and reaping the benefits, they found out OMG!, players are actually profiting from this, we can't have that! Lets go and nerf them all to oblivion until no one will think about doing those quests anymore! Well, congratz, objective achieved. Those quests are once again not worth doing, so everyone is probably skipping them again., and we are back to where we started..

Now, lets be honest here, the problem is not that the players have x number of workshops, or have millions of coins, or like Katwijk suggested that players cycling through the quests put unduly stress in the servers (that idea is hilarious btw!).
The problem is, players are not buying as many diamonds as Inno wants them. At the end of the day, they want to make a profit, and if players tear down premium buildings, or just not buy them in the first place, they can't. So they are trying to restrict game play as much as they can, to force players to buy those premium culture buildings.

The thing is, this is not working, and it will never work, because players bored with the game have no reason to invest in it. Why on earth would I spend money to play a game 20 minutes a day?
I have spend a good amount of money in FoE and I never regretted it, and i always felt I got my money's worth. But here? I bought a few diamonds and as of now I told myself never again!
You want me to spend money here, give me something that I want to buy, something special that I feel it will really enhance my game! You had a great opportunity with the Ancient Wonders, its a shame you wasted it! Greater Buildings in FoE are a huge source of revenue for Inno, because with a few exceptions, most of them are really good for your city, and unlike the AWs, there is no drawback to have them so players end up paying diamonds for the bps, and sometimes even the goods to get them asap. Now AW had everything to do the same for Elvanar, but poor design lead them to be something most players will ignore. The person who had the idea that leveling the AW should costs boost relics should have been fired, that's how bad that idea is! So there you go, another feature that costed time and money to implement that will be ignored by a good part of the players! Not to mention the revenue lost...

All of this to say, once again, give us a reason to continue playing this game, give us something to do besides cycling through quests. Give us events (another huge source of income for Inno in FoE btw), give us something that will enhance our cities so that we will all want to spend money to have it...
And, just in case this time i actually get a mod's comment saying that new features are coming up soon, or something like that, leave the quests as they are for now. Or at least, if you are to change them, change them in an intelligent way, so you won't have to go and change them again the following week ( who wants to bet the coins quests will be changed again very soon when players start buildings level 1 workshops left and right?)

Use the carrot, not the stick!

 

[DeletedUser651]

Another brilliant post by madzix. Kudos!

Katjijk....if the devs are so upset by the constant clicking on the quests, I have an idea....get rid of most of them. They contradict each other and most of them aren't worth doing. You actually want a game where you don't click and don't do anything all day. Idk...maybe your wrist hurts? Anyway, most of us are playing because we want a game, but we don't want to have to click through useless quests either. The one quest I know that nearly everyone agreed wasn't worth the time consumed was the train 150 sorceresses. Yet, I have to click past it every time I see it. Now, I also have a choice of Gain 16,000 supplies, Gain 16,000 supplies plus a 1 day factory good, Gain 6 advanced tools, and Gain 200,000 coins and 2 advanced tools. Talk about overlapping? If I do one then I can't do the others, so obviously I will choose one of those and then click past the rest....again...and again...and again.

Efficient Cities.

Many players have chosen to play this game to have the most efficient city possible. They see the resources and make the best use of them. They have the highest score and have the most developed cities. That is their goal with the game.

Now, that there is this new "requirement" that all gain coins quests will have supplies, then the efficient way around that is to have lots of stupid level 1 workshops. Why would you make that the efficient option? Bizarre. (Or you can no factories and all workshops. Or almost no factories. That isn't efficient because you need tens of thousands of goods for negotiating provinces. And again, unlike, Kat, I like to keep building my city out and I need expansions to do it and that takes clearing provinces.)

Some players seem very upset that others have chosen efficiency over some particular building setup they prefer. To them, I say, to each his own. If you want more inefficient workshops, be my guest. But, it isn't good that the devs keep attacking the players who are playing this game the most efficient way possible. Those players are customers. In fact, in some entire worlds, efficiency is the goal. If the devs want workshops to be efficient then design the game so they are. But don't keep changing the rules. Pick something.

It just seems beyond silly to me that you have a city building game that keeps punishing efficiency. I'd make some joke here about this game being run by government officials, but I don't want to bring in politics.

Making Money

I am as capitalist as the next person. I love making money. I think it is great. There is nothing better than providing a service and getting paid for it. Both parties win and the world is a better place. I want this game to make a ton of money! However, if they keep ripping the rug out from people in the economics of the game, people won't spend money here. I know I never will. I don't trust that what I buy today will be useful tomorrow. I keep seeing the parameters of the game changing, so why would I spend money to get something that will help these current very fluid parameters? That is why I suggest you just pick something. Quests or no quests. I don't care. Pick something. Markets always do poorly when the rules of the game are in flux.

You can make money a few ways....you can provide a good product and offer even better extras or you can provide a product and then keep breaking it and demanding that people pay to keep it working. I fear the team here is focused on the latter approach. An approach that will not last. You might make some money at first, but then all your customers leave and you must get new ones to sucker in each time. I say, stop breaking the game, stop ripping things away from people and give them things instead to purchase. I guess these new culture buildings are ok. We all have tons of ideas.

Anyway, I know this is too long and most didn't read:

Keep the game stable
Stop blaming players if your game is poorly designed
Make a good product

Use the carrot not the stick!!

 

[DeletedUser338]

Many players have chosen to play this game to have the most efficient city possible. They see the resources and make the best use of them. They have the highest score and have the most developed cities. That is their goal with the game.

A city that doesn't work isn't exactly efficient, mate.

 

[DeletedUser651]

I don't know how to explain it to you Lord Jirre, but I will try.

The game has been designed to give you options. You build houses, you get coins for example. You have grid space you can build more houses. Another option the game has is quests. Fulfill quests and you get coins and/or supplies. If you don't want to use those options, that is up to you, but those options are presented to everyone. The most efficient cities take all the options presented to them and then gain the most points from those options. The top players on Arendyll have only been playing about half the time of anyone here, and yet they have more points than anyone here. One of the smartest players ever to play this game taught a lot of people how to be the most efficient possible and people worked together and have become very Elvenar savvy. These players have done the best from an efficiency standpoint. I don't know what you mean by a city that doesn't work, that term is irrelevant in a game. If one goal of this game is to gain points (as the ranking board surely suggests) then these players have cities that work the best.

Constantly readjusting one of the options in a game is bad. It is like Lucy yanking that football out from under Charlie Brown. I don't care if they say that quests aren't to be relied on, if you are efficient, then you use them. One is ignorant of the options of this game to think otherwise.

Trust me, no matter what the options of this game are, quests, no quests, coins, no coins, neighbors, no neighbors, those top players will remain the top players. They are incredibly smart. They adapt adapt adapt. But once you have offered a gaming product with certain options to people and they have given you money for those options, then it is sneaky to keep changing the options. Just pick something and stick with it.

Because the devs seem consistently stymied by the actions of the players, at this point all I can suggest is they remove all the quests completely and then figure out some way to rebalance the coins and supplies. No matter what quest they design they seem confounded each time as to how it will be used most efficiently....and players will figure that out. So, if you can't design a quest system that you understand and know how it will be used, then stop the system. Because all this constant freaking out and tweaking leads to uncertainty in game play and uncertainty is very harmful.

Alternatively, if you don't know your game as well as your players, then ask the players. They can tell you instantly the most efficient way that quest will be used. If you don't like the answer, then don't offer the quest. But for goodness sake, stop offering quests and then saying "Oh wait! No! We didn't think of that! We don't want you to do THAT!" We are now taking that right back from you! No...no quest for goods for you! No....no quest for supplies for you! And...omg...a quest that gives out copper and you suddenly built more granite mines so you could fulfill that quest....no copper for you! And on and on. It is bad practice.

 

[DeletedUser867]

top players will remain the top players. They are incredibly smart. They adapt adapt adapt. But once you have offered a gaming product with certain options to people and they have given you money for those options, then it is sneaky to keep changing the options.

Do you realize how contradictory your statement is?? If there were no changes, the "smart players" would never need to adapt to anything.

I'd argue that a "smart player" is somebody whose city thrives without the constant addition of Coins and Supplies from secondary sources, BECAUSE it's well planned, and well designed. Efficiency = Benefit / Effort, it's NOT about how many points you can cram into a given space. To use a metaphor, putting the puzzle/city together, so that everything fits perfectly, is the fun part.

I like very high end jigsaw puzzles, see *snap* and several other sources, that

• are made of wood
• use irregular pieces with edges that don't line up in either direction
• have a frame, so NONE of the pieces have a flat edge
• unfortunately cost more than $100 apiece, but are worth every penny

Or I occasionally go to the opposite extreme and use *snap* to chop a picutre of my own into a conputer jigsaw puzzle that's as difficult as I want it to be.

Elvenar is a DELIGHTFUL, dynamic jigsaw puzzle.

Edit by Muf-Muf: Edited out links; this is not the place for advertising.

 

[DeletedUser651]

Kat, everyone can march to their own drummer. You can have whatever goal you want in this game. If you want minimal clicking, that is your choice. If you think that clearing provinces is a bad thing to do, that is certainly up to you. Certainly, the smaller your city, the less clicking you will have to do. If you only want to do the quests staring at you on the screen, again, your option. That has nothing to do with playing the most efficiently for the rankings. Many players are competitive and they use the ranks as their benchmark, and that shouldn't come as a surprise when you are playing a game with a ranking system based on points.

Maybe you can suggest a ranking list for players who click the least?

If there were no changes, the "smart players" would never need to adapt to anything.

New goals are good, constantly changing the way you get to those goals is bad.

I like kittens and beaches and gardens.

 

[DeletedUser]

A city that doesn't work isn't exactly efficient, mate.

What's your definition of a "city that doesn't work?" BobbyKitty didn't describe a non-working city...she described cities which work at top performance....until the developers change the game. Then we develop cities again to work at top possible performance...until the developers change the game.

I'd argue that a "smart player" is somebody whose city thrives without the constant addition of Coins and Supplies from secondary sources, BECAUSE it's well planned, and well designed. Efficiency = Benefit / Effort, it's NOT about how many points you can cram into a given space.

.

There is nothing written in the Elvenar description which emphasizes efficiency. There is no scoring system for ranking efficiency. There is, however, a ranking/score system based on maximization.

max•i•mize
(ˈmæk səˌmaɪz)
v.t. -mized, -miz•ing.
1. to increase to the greatest possible amount or degree: to maximize profits.
2. to give the highest estimate to.
3. to make fullest use of.
​

The proposition that you "efficiency" players are playing the game correctly is an invention of your own minds. You merely have a personal preference for efficiency - the measure of benefit by the least possible effort, and that's a valid individual choice. But Elvenar doesn't mention efficiency. You don't receive points or score for efficiency. Autofighting - maximum efficiency! - doesn't produce better results than the repeated clicking for manual Fight. Elvenar doesn't include a click counter and measure your score based on how much you can get done per click. You don't receive random bonuses from the game for various measures of efficiency.

On the other hand, Elvenar consistently rewards maximization. We score higher. We produce more. We are given quests to perform and rewarded when we perform them. We maximize our goods production, and have ample to purchase KP. We maximize coin production and also use it for purchases. We maximize at every possible instance, and Elvenar promotes in the rankings. The more we maximize, the higher we rank.

The developers created a game designed to attract and reward players who prefer to play for maximization. For various reasons of their own, they are now modifying the game to cater to the style of efficiency players. Yes, they do seem to be on your side at the moment...but their bias is hypocritical and very confusing. They are the ones who decided to create a game where

Scores and rank accrue from working population, required culture, and provinces conquered - these are the only means of gaining score and rank. What is the developer-defined goal in Elvenar? Maximize your city to use the most possible population, the most possible culture and conquer the most possible provinces. ​

So, Katwijk, when you write, "...it's NOT about how many points you can cram into a given space..." - what game are you playing? It's not Elvenar as published by the developers. Clearly they care a great deal about how many points we cram into our spaces, as evidenced by the fact that they offer premium buildings which are designed for maximization, not efficiency.

And as for "smart players" not needing "secondary sources of coins and supplies"...keep saying things like that and the developers will quickly lose you as their best friend. If more players drink the koolaid of "slow self-sufficiency" and "no secondary sources"...sales will plummet. Impatience, excitement and impulse spending are factors that drive sales - rather the opposite of your turtle mentality